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Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"It's a city that clings to reserve, but find a reason to ask a question, and the reserve is broken."

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Monday, December 30, 2013

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!Since I am planning a trip to London around May, most of my reading for now is London related, including travel guides and lots of history. One book that I've started and which already is turning out to be completely fascinating is Londoners by Craig Taylor. The author interviewed tons of people who have lived or still live in London to ask them about their experiences with the city. It is incredibly revealing and a must-read for anyone who loves that city or who is planning on visiting it for the first time.
P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Friday, December 27, 2013

What books did Santa stuff your stocking with this holiday season? Do a holiday book haul for us! If you don’t celebrate just show off your books that you got this week. Pictures!!!

I live in Miami and we have, in December, a huge book sale at our main library. They have paperbacks for 1 dollar and hardbacks for 2, so go every year and by tons of books. Since I end up getting so many, I usually tell my family not to bother getting me anymore, since I can barely keep up with the ones I have.
Below, is one of the piles of books I bought this year at the book sale (there are more piles around the house)

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Steve Mitchell, happily married with a wife and two kids, is in line for a coveted position at Boston's University Hospital when his world goes awry. His over-reaching ambition causes him to botch a major surgery, and another of his patients mysteriously dies. Steve’s nightmare goes from bad to worse when he learns that the mysterious death was no accident but the act of a sociopath. A sociopath he knows and who has information that could destroy Steve’s career and marriage. A sociopath for whom killing is more than a means to an end: it’s a game. Because he is under a cloud of suspicion and has no evidence, he knows that any accusations he makes won’t be believed. So he must struggle to turn the tables, even as the killer skillfully blocks his every move.

This was an interesting novel, though perhaps, at
least for me for different reasons than the author intended.

This is a thriller, but it is a medical thriller,
which heaps on the awesome factor, since it involves all kinds of different surgical
procedures. It is incredibly detailed, so the author took his time doing
research from the right people. This, for me, is what makes the book so
interesting. We get a good look at what being a surgeon is like and what it
entails. The plot line falls second to the fascinating details we read.

There isn’t much uniqueness to the actual storyline,
unfortunately. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who the villain is, and
from then on, there aren’t many surprises left. Think of any action movie you’ve
seen, and that’s pretty much what you can expect from this novel. The ending is
a bit rushed, and it’s a little too convenient for the protagonist to be an
expert in computers and hacking. It just feels forced.

I still think this novel is worth reading because of
the many details into a surgeon’s life we get, but if that’s not something you’re
interested in, you should choose some other thriller.

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Monday, December 23, 2013

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I just started reading Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake. So far, I'm- enjoying this one more than the first book in the series, which is...strange. I don't think it's ever happened to me before that I enjoy the sequel more than the original.

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Thursday, December 19, 2013

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.
I'm waiting on A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger.

P.S. Please don't forget to sign up for my brand new newsletter which is located right at the top of the page. It will be out once a week, featuring my exclusive stories, poetry, and even songs from my upcoming album! Don't miss out!

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Since my friend's book tour is happening this week, I am featuring her YA novel. Here is another teaser from The Tearings by V.C. Repetto.

"We
eased out of the ambulance and looked around, expecting to see a tall building
dressed in institutional gray, with people in scrubs and masks.

Instead,
we saw what looked like an old bus terminal with at least two dozen school
buses painted a dull black with every window covered up with metallic blinds."

Monday, December 16, 2013

The
woman sits on her bed, her comforter and sheets in knots behind her, flotsam
from the night’s shipwreck of hours. Darkness seeps out of them as sweats seeps
out of her. As if after a broken fever, her shirt clings to her like a double
skin but her body is cool in the lightening gloom.

She
blinks and stares at a sky she has never seen before. Not with these eyes which
see light instead of shadows and color, so much color!

“How
long?” She whispers. How long has she been swimming underwater, with only the
shallowest of breaths to keep her going? Ages. Millennia.

“Depression
robs a person of everything,” her mother said weeks before. “This is not you. I
know that. Do you?”

And
she hadn’t, not until this morning. It’d been so long since she’d felt anything
but coiling darkness inside her that she’d forgotten what just breathing felt
like.

The
room smells of a struggle and abandoned sleep, but she has never smelled
anything like it before. It’s like everything around her has bloomed; the
lavender liquid with which she washes her sheets pushing through the dough-like
scent of sweat; the glass of water she hasn’t touched that smells of dust; even
the paint chipping off the walls. All of it surrounds her, strong enough to
make her press her hands to her nose.

Tears
sting the patches of skin on her face she’s rubbed raw throughout the endless
night. “Ouch,” she moans and then snorts with a swallowed chuckle. She can feel
her skin again and it hurts, but it’s the kind of hurting that can heal. Her
whole body, her mind, feels like a blister, just waiting to be drained of water
and puss.

The
light keeps growing, pushing against her room’s darkness. It reveals the book
she’s hasn’t opened in weeks and the bottle on her bedside table. It’s tipped
over and empty.

Pills
lay scattered on the carpet like powdery white landmines which she cracks into
pieces as she gets off the bed and walks to the window. She doesn’t feel them
dissolve under her feet, each one of those pills she counted over and over
again throughout the night, making sure they were enough.

Nothing
miraculous had happened. There had been no voice from above or sign that she
should stop. She could have taken them times over and no one would have known. It’d
just been a sound. One tiny, pinpoint of noise she’d balanced on the entire
night.

The
shower head dripping onto the tiles in the bathroom, the sound echoing through
the open bathroom door. The stupid shower head she’d meant to have called
someone about for months now, but had never found the push to look for a
number, to pick up her phone, to make the call.

“That’s
going to be the last thing I hear,” she said and felt…something. The beginnings
of the rage that would launch her to scratch the walls with her bare nails, to
rub her face enough that days later the marks would still be intact.

Drop
by drop, rage built until she couldn’t sit anymore. She counted the pills
again, to steady herself, but each one matched a drop and her teeth grit
together. Her heart pounded harder than it had in months or years or centuries
and she pressed her heels against her chest, trying to make it stop. Just stop!

The
drops counted her backwards, like a hypnotist’s voice, and she saw the wasted
hours in this room, on this same bed, the time spent keeping track of how much
time she’d lost. Over and over and over. And she was sick of it. Sick of
herself like this.

That
was when she’d lunged out of bed, tipping the bottle and spilling the pills.
She grabbed the curtains that hadn’t been opened in days and ripped them off
the window, sending the beam that held them up crashing to the floor. With a
scream, she grabbed on to the very walls and dragged her nails down, peeling
the old paint in strips.

It
continued for hours, the ripping and tearing, the knotting of bed-sheets. She
thinks, now, that she hadn’t thought even once to head into the bathroom and
yank that shower head off the wall. Instead, she’d massacred her room until her
hands swelled.

And
here she is, now, staring at the growing light as if she’s never seen it
before. She hasn’t, not really.

After
a plunge in such dark waters as the ones she’s been swimming in, light is never
the same.

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!Since my friend's book tour is happening right now, I will be featuring her book throughout the week. So here is a bit about The Tearings:

From the moment the black vans appear to take the
sick away, Maya knows there is something wrong. A high school sophomore, she
seems to be the only one to question the sudden disappearances at school and
the masks everyone is forced to wear to keep from catching the new disease
spreading through the entire United States. Even when word of the new “healing
centers” reaches the public, no one dares to ask what is happening.

But when Maya catches the disease, the one they call The Tearings, and is taken
to one of these centers along with her mother, the truth becomes all too clear.
She is separated from her family and forced to work, becoming one of the more
fortunate ones who is not sent to the testing wings. Bullied by the guards to
the point of death, she meets David Summers, the enigmatic young Captain who
appears to loathe his position of power in the camp and who seems as drawn to
Maya as she is to him.

When Maya suddenly becomes the disease’s only survivor, she must put her trust
on David to find a way to escape the camp and get the truth, and the cure
coursing through her veins, out to the world.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

In 2082, a catastrophic explosion rocks the dedication ceremony of the new United Nations in New York City. Security Director Julia Moro is on the job, chasing after the misogynistic leader of Patria, a long-disbanded international terrorist organization now being whispered about again on the streets. This dangerous, shadowy figure has been linked to several bombing attempts and vicious attacks on women, including the Women of Peace—an organization headed by thirteen bold women who have risked their lives to restore worldwide peace. As Julia’s investigation unfolds, a deep secret from her past threatens to strip her of everything she cherishes and plunge her into unrecoverable darkness.

This is probably the dullest book I’ve read this
year. It started off slow, continued on slow, and ended slow. It is advertised
as a thriller, but I have no idea how anyone could have chosen to describe this
book as anything remotely thrilling.

I think one of the biggest issues the novel has is
that it jumps too much from past to present, from one character to another. It
got to the point where I remember picking the book up and not having a clue as
to who was speaking or what was going on because it’d been jumping around so
much. I usually enjoy books that move back and forwards in time, but this one
was a mess for me.

And then the action itself. Although it deals with terrorist
attacks and what-not, there is actually very little action that happens on the
page and is not part of someone’s back-story. I found my mind wandering too
much throughout reading it and it took me much longer to get through it than I
wanted. This is not one I’d recommend unless you have just run out of your
Lunesta and need a good night’s sleep.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
From Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

“But hey, at least we’ll have this strange story to tell, love and death and blood and daddy-issues. And holy crap, I’m a psychiatrist’s wet dream.”

Monday, December 9, 2013

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!I am currently reading Anna Dressed in Blood by Blake Kendare. So far, I am enjoying it. The narrator has an interesting voice, which holds your attention. Many times, that's the problem I have with YA narrators, that they all tend to have the same internal voice. This one is a fun book, so far.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Jodi and Todd are at a bad place in their marriage. Much is at stake, including the affluent life they lead in their beautiful waterfront condo in Chicago, as she, the killer, and he, the victim, rush haplessly toward the main event. He is a committed cheater. She lives and breathes denial. He exists in dual worlds. She likes to settle scores. He decides to play for keeps. She has nothing left to lose. Told in alternating voices, The Silent Wife is about a marriage in the throes of dissolution, a couple headed for catastrophe, concessions that can’t be made, and promises that won’t be kept. Expertly plotted and reminiscent of Gone Girl and These Things Hidden, The Silent Wife ensnares the reader from page one and does not let go.

I think the main issue I had with this book is that
the hype was so strong, and it was compared so much to Gone Girl by Gillian
Flynn, that it raised my expectations way too much. Don’t get me wrong, this
book was good, just not that good.

I love unreliable narrators and in this novel we get
two of them. That is my favorite thing about this novel, how some crucial facts
are casually mentioned by one character or another, letting us put things
together little by little. Unfortunately, some of the actual writing can be
clunky, with too much telling for my taste. There are pages and pages of the
author just telling us events instead of letting us see them through a
character’seyes, which slows the book
down.

Apart from that, the last half of the book doesn’t
make too much logical sense, I don’t want to give anything away, but I’m not
sure what part two is even doing in the novel. I understand the author needed
to tie up some loose ends, but an entire second section is not necessary.

I felt the book had some potential, especially in
the way the author handled some of the psychological aspects, but it didn’t
quite get there for me.

Monday, December 2, 2013

This was a lovely novel for young adults that steps
out of the norm for the genre. Yes, there are teenagers with powers, but the
story is much deeper than the average teen story. There are layers and layers
of meaning behind this clever novel.

The writing, as in all of Peacock’s books, is crisp
and clear. It never gets in the way of the plot or the character development.
The story itself is quick-paced, so that you never find your mind wandering as
you read. The dialogue really helps with this, since it is full of quirky teen
sayings that had me laughing out loud. The way the author handles the meaning
behind the story is also very clever, since he walks the fine line of not being
preachy, which can sometimes happen in YA books that are meant to teach
lessons. This one easily avoids that while still making the wanted impact on
the reader.

If you are looking for a novel that will leave you
smiling and wondering what’s going to happen next, then this one is for you.

Do you have a preference between “person” in the books you read? Do you prefer third-person to first-person? Or don’t you care? And, why?I usually prefer first person, both while reading and writing. I like to get into a character's head, and while you can still do this in third person, it is always more effective in first person. I also really enjoy unreliable narrators, and this can only be achieved if the writing is in first person.